by Mary Monroe
CHAPTER 37
None of my friends graduated from Berkeley High when I did. Some of the ones who had been smart enough to stay in school had fallen back a year or two and had to do some repeats. But there were more who had strayed as far away from an education as they could get.
That fiasco with Wade in L.A. had hurt me more than I thought it would. For days after I’d returned home I had felt like a piece of shit because that was how Wade had treated me. And because I was now making an effort to improve my situation I deserved something better than Wade had offered, or not offered I should say. Now I wanted to be with somebody who wanted to be with me, and not just to fuck me. I wanted to see what the other side was like. But I knew most decent men avoided girls like me so I knew I had to make some changes in my life.
I had not done any drugs, not even a joint, since the day I started working for Jesse Ray at the video store. I still drank, and I still liked to smoke a few Newports throughout the day, but I had dropped some of my bad habits. I had not had sex for five months by the time Jesse Ray got around to asking me for a date.
“I don’t know much about your personal life, and if you don’t want to tell me, you don’t have to. But I like you, Christine. I did the first time I saw you at the flea market that day. If you are interested, I’d like to take you out sometime,” Jesse Ray said. “But …,” he said, then paused and looked away. He looked at the floor a moment before he returned his attention to me. “If you are already involved with somebody else, I respect that. And, if that is the case, all I can say is, he’s one lucky man.”
It was a Saturday night, just before closing time. He and I were in the store alone, restocking videos that had been returned that day. His confession brought tears to my eyes. It was the first time that a man had shown an interest in me in such a noble way.
“How do you know it’s not a woman?” I teased.
“Excuse me?”
I laughed and touched the side of his arm. Then he laughed.
“I don’t have a boyfriend—or a girlfriend—if that’s what you want to know,” I said and smiled. I had not given much thought to Jesse Ray as a possible lover or anything other than an employer. But he was so nice to me, letting me take off when I wanted, and listening to me ramble on about things that meant nothing to anybody but me.
Things were still pretty dismal at home, but I still had Miss Odessa next door to fall back on. I had not seen or heard from Wade since he’d chased me out of L.A., not in person or on television or anywhere else.
And, neither had any of my friends. But Miss Louise was still running all over town, bragging about how good her “baby boy” was doing in Hollywood. She was also still borrowing money left and right, even more than ever before. The last time she’d hit on me, I was down to my last quarter. She took that. But, true to her word, she came to the apartment the following weekend and paid me back.
“Well, I know you like movies,” Jesse Ray laughed, holding up a copy of The Color Purple. He let me take as many movies home to watch for free as I wanted. “You’ve borrowed this one more than half a dozen times. But movies are so much more enjoyable on a big screen. If we leave now, I’m sure we can catch the last screening of something else you might like.”
In addition to movies, he took me to dinner a couple of times a week. Being the enterprising brother that he was, Jesse Ray was always looking for more ways to make more money. He borrowed money from the bank and took over the video store. He opened his second store on Cedar Street in North Berkeley a month later, leaving me to manage the first one.
I had just restocked some returned videos one evening, just before we closed for the night, when I decided to check out the adult section for the first time. Not that I was interested in watching any X-rated movies, but the fact that so many people rented the damn things made me curious.
The adult section was located in a small back room behind the manager’s office. Jesse Ray had decided that this was the only way to keep minors from looking at some of the lurid titles. I was standing in front of the shelves, shaking my head at some of the titles. With each one I picked up, I frowned. Then one title jumped out at me: Ball in the Family. This particular title caught my attention because it reminded me of the old television show All in the Family. On the video cover were several white women and one handsome, wellhung black man. I blinked and rubbed my eyes because at first, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, or who I was seeing. I recognized the actor even with a mustache. Splayed on a king-size bed, naked to the world in a bedroom too tacky for words, was Wade. He was the very first and the last man (I hoped) who had had me acting like a fool. His stage name was King Dong. I looked through several more tapes and came across four more that featured Wade in the lead role. I held up the two most disgusting ones and shook my head. The titles alone were enough to make me sick: Tricky Dick and Tittie City.
As strange as it was even to me, I was still interested in Wade. I felt good about the fact that I had encouraged him to pursue his acting career, but I never expected him to end up as a porn star. Knowing what I knew now made me feel unbearably sad and sorry for Wade. Now I understood why my presence in L.A. had irritated him so much.
Just two days earlier, I’d run into his mama at the bus stop where I caught my bus home after work each evening.
“Oh, my boy is doing so well down there in Hollywood,” she’d declared, swooning. “It’s just a matter of time before he gets the lead in one of his movies.”
I sighed to keep from rolling my eyes. I watched a lot of television, and I rented a lot of movies. So far I had not seen Wade Eddie Fisher in anything legitimate. Surfing the Web had not even turned up anything, and that was really strange because I’d been able to find movies featuring some of the most obscure entertainers in the business and other related information.
Well, Wade had finally landed the lead role in not one but several movies. With a heavy hand and sad heart, I returned the videos to the shelf, wondering what I’d say to Wade about his career if and when I ever saw him again.
CHAPTER 38
I never mentioned the videos of Wade to Jesse Ray. As a matter of fact, I never mentioned Wade to him at all. One of the many things that I admired about Jesse Ray was the fact that he had no interest in my past. At least that was what he had led me to believe. Even though I’d told him that I’d been “pretty wild” during my younger years. Whenever I did bring up my past, he promptly changed the subject.
“Baby, what you did before you met me was your business. And vice versa. I don’t know what you did or who you did it with. All I care about now is our future,” he told me. “Let’s go get some Chinese food.”
Jesse Ray spent a lot of time talking to me about his family, which included his widowed mother and his two siblings and their families. From what he’d told me, his was a close-knit family. They got together on a regular basis. But the first few weeks into our relationship, I declined all of his invitations to attend this or that family gathering. One of the reasons was, I didn’t want to get too close to somebody else’s family, because of the relationship I had with mine.
I didn’t like to talk about my parents with outsiders. Mainly because there was not too much I could say about them that would make them look good.
Things had changed in our house, but not for the better. Daddy was even more withdrawn and sullen. And, Mama was as cantankerous as ever, still reminding me about all the hours and pain she had to endure to give birth to me. Which made the fact that they had attended my high school graduation even more mysterious. They had shown very little interest in my education, attending PTA meetings only when they had to, glancing at my report cards, with no comments. But I blamed myself, too. I never shared much with them and did very little to encourage them to be more active in my life.
Three weeks before graduation, Daddy glanced at me sitting on the sofa next to him and cleared his throat to speak. “So, you’ll be finishing up school soon, eh?” he asked. He and I had been si
tting on the same sofa alone for three hours, watching television in silence. It took me a few moments to realize he was talking to me. I gave him the same kind of blank look that he and Mama usually gave me.
“Me?” I asked dumbly, pointing at myself. “Uh, that’s right.”
“Uh-huh,” was all he said. He nodded and returned his attention to the television screen. And the subject never came up again.
Mama and Daddy were at work when I got ready to leave for the graduation ceremonies. Even though it was an exciting day for me, it was also a sad one. I had no plans for my future. I enjoyed working for Jesse Ray, and I enjoyed his company, but I didn’t know where the relationship was going. I didn’t even mention my graduation to Jesse Ray. In some ways, it was just another day for me. I didn’t notice Mama and Daddy sitting in a back row until I actually walked across the stage to receive my diploma. I don’t know how I managed not to stumble. I saw them leave before I even got back to my seat.
“I never expected to see them sitting there. I didn’t think they cared,” I told Miss Odessa after everything was over. I had come home with her in a cab.
“They are still your folks, baby. They are proud of you. If they wasn’t, you wouldn’t be with them,” Miss Odessa assured me, stroking the side of my head.
“It wouldn’t hurt if they told me or showed me that once in a while,” I said, my lips pursing into a pout. “They have never told me they loved me or that they were proud of me or anything. I know I was not planned or even wanted. Mama is never going to let me forget what a burden it was to carry me for nine months and how my birth almost killed her. Why they feel the way they do about me is a mystery.”
It had been a while since one of my parents had snuck up on me in my bedroom and kissed my cheek when they thought I was asleep. But I had to admit that there was the possibility that they had done it while I had actually been asleep. I had mixed feelings about them doing something so odd, and it was one of the few things that I didn’t even want to discuss with Miss Odessa.
“Baby, have you ever sat down with your folks and tried to talk to them?”
“Why should I?”
“Because there is a reason for everything. I bet there is a lot of things they want to say to you.”
“Then why don’t they? They see me every day.”
“Honey, some folks don’t know how to say what’s on their mind. Some folks don’t know how to show their feelings. Now your folks had a very hard life in Guatemala. A life me and you can’t even begin to understand.”
“They talked to you about Guatemala?” I asked, with a surprised look on my face. “They rarely talk to me about where they came from and what it was like. Why would they tell you?”
“Because I asked them.”
“Why?”
“Well, because I wanted to know. If you really want to understand your folks better, I suggest you go up to them and ask them whatever it is you want to know.”
I gave Miss Odessa’s words a lot of thought over the next few months. But I didn’t take any action, and I didn’t know if I ever would.
When I finally did accept an invitation to have dinner with Jesse Ray and his family, I was glad I did so that I could see firsthand that having a close family was not all that it was cracked up to be. His sister, Adele, walked around with her nose in the air like she was a supermodel. She was tall and thin, but she was as plain as she could be. Her eyes were too big for her long face, her nose was all over her face, and she had one of the worst cases of acne I’d ever seen on a woman her age. The brother, Harvey, was lucky. He looked like an older version of Jesse Ray, but he was loud and obnoxious, and so were his clothes. The first time I met him, he wore a red polyester suit. He told stale jokes and did horrible impressions of famous people. I didn’t know which sibling was the most irritating. But I was nice and friendly with them at all times, no matter how difficult it was.
“So look here, Crystal—”
“It’s Christine,” I corrected, cutting Adele off. “And it’s spelled with a C.” From the scowl on Adele’s face, she let me know right away that she didn’t like the move I’d just made. But I’d done it for more reasons than one. First, I wanted her to get my name right. Second, I wanted her to know off the bat that I was no wuss. I defended myself whenever I had to.
“Whatever,” she said, continuing, with the scowl still on her face. “I don’t know what you are doing to my brother, but whatever it is, it must be good. I ain’t never seen his nose open for no women this wide,” Adele said, gnawing on a pork-chop bone.
We had gathered for dinner, which I’d cooked in Jesse Ray’s spacious condo, in one of the nicest areas in the northern part of Berkeley.
“Well, as long as you don’t open it too wide, I ain’t going to complain,” Harvey muttered, a fork in one hand and a large glass of wine in the other. “My baby brother is a businessman, and he needs to keep his wits about him.”
It was a struggle for me to smile, because all eyes were on me, giving me critical looks. But Adele’s husband, Mel, had the only set of eyes that made me nervous. He’d winked at me several times already. And, with the last wink, he had licked his lips in a very suggestive manner.
“I think J.R. and I are going to be fine,” I said, with confidence. “We get along all right,” I added.
“Well, if you are going to be cooking up meals this good, I don’t care what you do to old J.R.,” Mel said, chewing so hard, I was afraid he’d snap his tongue in two. “These chops is screaming.”
“Next time don’t be so heavy-handed with that pepper, though,” Adele said, with a fake smile, twirling a knife and a fork in the same hand.
“Baby, don’t let anything these heathens say bother you. They’re this way with everybody,” Jesse Ray said. He rose from his seat at the head of the table and came around where I sat next to Harvey and hauled off and kissed me so passionately, it made me squirm. It made Adele squirm, too, because when I looked at her, she looked at me like she wanted to use that knife and fork on me.
I hadn’t even slept with Jesse Ray yet. However, he often spent more money on me in one month than the rest of the men I’d been with had spent on me put together. And, speaking of money, from what Jesse Ray had told me, and from what I’d seen the same evening I’d met them, his family was one set of people that I would have to keep both my eyes on.
Other than Wade’s mama, Jesse Ray’s family had more financial “emergencies” than anybody I knew. Three days after that dinner in Jesse Ray’s condo, Adele returned while I was there to borrow money for an emergency she was too embarrassed to identify. A week later I called up Adele to invite her to lunch at my expense. I did it because I had been feeling guilty about scolding Jesse Ray for being so generous to his family. I was horrified when Mel told me she was “still on her Mexican cruise.”
Two months later Adele borrowed money from Jesse Ray to get American Express off her back. She owed them over two thousand dollars. I found out later that most of the charges had been made at Disneyland.
It was hard for me to ignore all this foolishness, and I tried to as much as I could. But there was no way I was going to sit back and let people continue to take advantage of my man. I was not bold enough to confront his family, but I did let him know how I felt. “Baby, it’s only money,” he told me. “I got a few dollars, and everybody I know is wondering how much I’m going to leave behind when I die. I’ll tell you the same thing I tell them: I’ll be leaving it all behind. I can’t take it with me, so I plan to enjoy it while I can. And, part of my enjoyment is being there for my family.”
Jesse Ray’s older brother, Harvey, reminded me of Wade. Not that they looked alike or anything like that, but Harvey had shyly confessed that he’d once considered pursuing a career in show business. But the closest he’d been able to get to show business was an appearance on The People’s Court when he sued a former friend for not repaying a loan. And, that was a story in and of itself, because Jesse Ray told me that Harvey rar
ely repaid any of the money he “borrowed” from him. Harvey had stayed at the dinner just long enough to tell a few lame jokes, fix a plate to go, and borrow a “few more dollars” from Jesse Ray. I had already learned that to Jesse Ray’s family, a few dollars could mean anything from a few dollars to a couple of thousand.
“My brother and sister have more financial problems than anybody I know,” Jesse Ray told me, like I couldn’t already see that for myself. I gave him a thoughtful look, thinking about Wade’s mama and all the times she’d borrowed my last dollar. “I usually don’t see or hear from them until they are in a bind. Now Mama, she never asks for anything unless she really needs it. And, then she goes out of her way to pay me back, not that I ever take it. But you know, family is family. If you can’t depend on family, you can’t depend on anybody else,” Jesse Ray told me, with a wistful sniff.
I liked it when he showed his emotions. In addition to being smart, generous, and thoughtful, he was sensitive. I knew that it would be a good move on my part to take my relationship with him to another level. And I planned on doing just that. This was one man I wasn’t about to let get away. I knew I could not depend on my family, but I knew that I could depend on Jesse Ray.
We finally made love six months into our relationship, on a king-size bed at the Hyatt Hotel in downtown San Francisco. I had come a long way from fucking anonymous guys on the ground in People’s Park and Wade on that saggy mattress in his bedroom.
Jesse Ray was not as good in bed as Wade, but he was adequate. And, he seemed to get better each time, because I was not shy about telling him what I wanted in bed. Before long I couldn’t keep my hands off that man. But it was not just about sex and his generosity. Jesse Ray did something for me that no other man had ever done. He made me feel special. Being special was one of the few things that I’d ever wanted in my life. And, for that reason, he would always be special to me.
